


Comfort and Convenience

by fmo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, F/M, Marriage of Convenience, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-27 14:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2696681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fmo/pseuds/fmo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1943, Howard Stark marries his secretary, Stella Rogers, in a marriage of convenience for PR purposes. After all, they work well together and respect each other; they just don't love each other. For the next few years, their lives remain much the same as they were before the marriage--until the war ends and an acquaintance of Howard's from the war comes to work for Stark Industries. And Steve thinks she might be falling in real love with James Barnes, who doesn't even know that Steve's marriage is fake.</p><p>Based off this prompt on the capkink meme: http://capkink.dreamwidth.org/1349.html?thread=518213#cmt518213</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s the first night of the World Exposition of Tomorrow: the gentle warmth of a May evening, an excited murmur growing as the crowds pour in, the smells of gasoline and the city and popcorn and, behind Stage Four, rigged up for the big Stark demonstration, the scent of exhaust and the bitter tang of slightly burned things that follows Mr. Stark wherever he goes. In the oasis of backstage, Steve leans against the flimsy wall separating her from the crowds, holds Mr. Stark’s coffee cup tight in her always-chilled hands, and thinks: meeting Howard was, after all, a stroke of luck.

After all the years of her thorny nature getting her in trouble, it finally did her a favor by helping her keep the difficult job of being Howard’s secretary. From all the legends she’s heard around the company, he usually used to chase them off within a week or two. But since two years ago, when Steve was elevated from the secretarial pool as a last-minute replacement for a particularly dramatic walkout, she’s slapped him a few times, poured his liquor out down toilets across the globe, and managed to gain a position where _Miss Rogers_  sounds maybe a little like a sign of respect.

Howard really isn’t all bad, she thinks, watching him still tinkering with his flying car with five minutes left until curtains up, but he’s just like a spoiled high school boy who never got told _no_ enough times. He does everything too much, and too fast, and too hard, and with too much enthusiasm, and doesn’t take a moment to question whether he should; he lacks a healthy measure of self-doubt. It’s charming in its own way, of course, but it ends up in a lot of explosions that don’t ever seem to teach Howard a lesson. And, of course, all of the country, including the government, loves the genius Howard Stark, so it doesn’t seem he’s likely to learn any time soon.

It’s a shame, Steve thinks, because Howard could be quite a good man.

“Rogers!” Howard calls just then from half-under the car (in his tux, naturally), waving an arm. Steve deigns to put the coffee mug in his hand, even though he’s then forced to emerge anyway so that he can drink from it.

Howard takes a gulp, and then raises an eyebrow. “This is coffee,” he says. “ _All_ coffee.”

“Couldn’t find the whiskey,” Steve says. Something catches her eye on the ground below the car, amid the heap of Howard’s esoteric collection of tools—but it doesn’t look like a tool, looks more like a spark plug. She kneels (carefully, because of her skirt) and picks it up. “This important?”

Howard stares at the gewgaw in her hand, then grabs it from her and smacks a bristly kiss on her cheek. “Stella, you are my own treasure.” He turns back to the car. “I need five more minutes, tell the girls to dance a bit. Otherwise the beast’s gonna spark out after about two seconds of air.”

Steve forbears from telling Howard that the models he hired are not dancers at all, but instead takes the piece of paper folded in her pocket for this exact eventuality and finds Josie among the other models waiting to take to the stage. “At least five minutes. Read slow,” Steve tells her.

“Don’t worry, I used to be a waitress,” Josie says, holding her arm reassuringly. “I know how to work a crowd.”

Josie takes the paper and goes onstage to thunderous applause. The script Steve had written is just a brief history of Stark Industries with a few interesting facts and selling points about recent Stark products, but the crowd is in a good mood and they’re easily entertained until Howard finally emerges from under the car again, brushes off his suit, and says, “How’d I look, Miss Rogers?”

“Like a captain of industry,” Steve says dryly. He waves at her, grabs his hat, and rushes, pink-cheeked, onto the stage.

As Howard sells to the crowd, Steve sneaks out from backstage to get a sideways view of the action. She’s heard the pitch before as Howard practiced it, so it’s not that interesting; she’s more drawn to the people watching, enthralled by the spectacle. There’s parents and kids, but a lot of guys and girls Steve’s age too, girls on the boys’ arms. That’s a picture Steve’s seen in movies and on the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan lots of times, but never really been a part of: the girl in the pretty dress, with her hair freshly curled, holding onto the handsome man in the nice suit or, sometimes, the dapper uniform. Steve’s hair never does keep a curl, no matter how hard she tries, and she thinks the dresses never really look like they’re supposed to when she wears them.

They look like they’re having fun, though, the couples in the crowd, even though the boys in uniform are kind of sad as well as beautiful. There’s one soldier in particular who seems to have _two_ girls with him, and his hat is tilted rakishly—but he looks enchanted by Stark’s little performance, and that innocence makes his natural handsomeness even more appealing.

Well. Steve checks her watch. In the end, the car stays aloft for three minutes and twenty seconds by Steve’s wristwatch, which is definitely good enough to make it into the papers tomorrow. Another victory for Stark Industries.

They repeat the demonstration again at six and seven, to bigger crowds each time. With the time it takes to secure the flying car for transport back to Howard’s workshop (Steve is highly suspicious of competitors who’d love to steal a Stark innovation and patent it for their own), it’s not until almost nine that Jarvis drops Howard and Steve off at the mansion.

The matter of Steve’s housing had been a sensitive issue for some time. Steve had been reluctant to leave her home in Brooklyn, dubious about accepting free lodging from her employer, and fully aware that her mother would have been turning in her grave to know that Steve was living in such scandalous conditions, even though Steve’s room was by Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis’s apartment and she practically lived like a nun, other than seeing Howard eating his breakfast clad only in a bathrobe. But eventually the long journey on the subway and the strain on her lungs and body in the cold winter or smoggy summer had convinced her. In addition, Howard had promised not to call for her between the hours of midnight and five unless it was a true emergency—and he had stuck to that.

It is unusual, though, for Howard to ask Steve to share a drink with him before they go to bed. “I had an idea,” he says. “I want to talk about it with you.”

“It can wait ‘til morning,” Steve says. Howard might want to stay up all night working, but Steve knows from experience that she’ll end up light-headed if she doesn't get enough sleep.

“It’s meetings all day tomorrow. We won’t have a spare moment,” Howard says. He reaches for the crystal decanter with a habitual gesture. “No funny business, Rogers, I swear. It’s a real business proposition. I’ll sit over there on the couch, and you can sit on the big chair. See?”

Despite herself, Steve is curious. She accepts a tumbler with a tiny splash of bourbon and sits on the appointed wing chair, facing the couch but separated by the coffee table. True to his word, Howard sits on the couch with his much fuller glass, turning it around in his hands in a way that betrays anxiety.

“All right,” Steve says, a little unsettled by her usually unshakeable boss’s display of nerves. “What is it?”

Howard takes a sip of his bourbon, then puts it down on the table and says, “Stella Rogers, would you marry me?”

Steve rolls her eyes and stands up. “For Pete’s sake, Howard, I want to go to bed—“

“I’m serious,” Howard says. “Would you sit down? I mean it.” And his expression is serious, and he looks sober, even to Steve’s experienced eye.

Steve sits down again, now acutely aware of her hemline just across her knees. A small part of her wants to say _yes_ , yes, she’d love to have a warm house and shoes that fit and the promise of security for the rest of her life, but, well. “Mr. Stark,” she says. “I mean no—no personal offence, but I really don’t—“

“No offence taken, pal, I don’t either,” Howard says reassuringly. “But the Board really wants a Mrs. Stark, and you know that the ad men say that the people love a family man, and I’d really love a lady with a ring by my side to scare off all the gold-diggers my bank account attracts. And I’ve kind of become fond of you, Rogers, and you pulled my ass, excuse me, out of the fire tonight. You’re a smart girl, and I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather have a fraudulent marriage with.”

Steve can’t help but laugh. “I think that’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me,” she says. The sad part is, that’s true.

Howard looks encouraged. “Plus, this way there'll be no unpleasant rumors if you're seen staying late with me in the office, or going into my hotel suite in the morning." This has been a concern, it's true. "Anyway, financially, it’d be a real marriage. We’d draw up an agreement, so if we divorce, you get—let’s say a million, plus a house? And you’d have a joint bank account with me while we’re married, enough to buy anything you want. We can work it out later with the accountants, so you get a say in everything." 

Steve twists her hands in her lap. It sounds so appealing, but—it’s immoral, isn’t it? A fake marriage? Except what Howard’s proposing is an honest partnership—neither of them is lying to the other. And they’re already practically married in terms of their daily lives. If they’re not interested in one another romantically, well, whose business is that but their own?

“What about, uh—adultery?” Steve says. Howard likes to act the playboy in public, but in private she suspects he’s more interested in his cars and machines than he is in girls. He likes the attention of a brief flirtation, but she’s known every detail of his life for two years and she knows there have been much fewer _prolonged_ involvements than the papers might think. And as for Steve, well . . . it’s been a long time since she went out to dinner with anyone but Howard anyway.

“Well, we’d both be free to do it, I suppose,” Howard says, “with the condition that it’s kept as clandestine as these things usually are.”

Steve nods.  It sounds fair and above-board. It’s just that—well, she’s been waiting for the right partner, as she likes to put it. When he comes, what happens when she tells him that she’s already married?

“And we’d be free to divorce at any time, if we want to,” Howard says.

There’s just one more thing. “Uhm,” Steve says, scratching a nonexistent itch on her forehead. “You know, I think I probably can’t. That is. A baby.” 

Before Steve swallows her tongue, Howard interjects, “That—that's fine." He clears his throat. “I don’t have time to have an heir right now, quite frankly, and I won’t until the war ends—God grant that happens sooner rather than later.”

“There’s always adoption,” Steve says.

“Exactly,” Howard says, with some relief.

For a moment, neither of them says anything, until Steve downs the last of her bourbon and says, “I’ll take tonight to think about it.”

“Take as long as you like,” Howard says.

Steve takes her glass with her to put it in the sink downstairs for Mrs. Jarvis to wash up in the morning. Usually she’d do it herself, but her hands are shaking.

She sits in her nice servant’s quarters bedroom with her sketches framed on the wall, and thinks: she’s always considered herself to be a good person. She’s always thought she was. If she does this, does it mean she isn’t?

What would her mother say?

On the other hand, she knows that her health is shaky at the best of times, and every day brings the risk of a new illness or flare-up that she can’t pay for. She knows that she has no family left in America, and that when she’s old she’ll have no kids to take care of her. She doesn’t know if she can afford to be too proud to accept Howard’s money, because it’s not just money, it’s the knowledge that for the rest of her life there will be doctors for her, and a home for her, and the things that she needs. In just a moment, Howard’s money could erase all the worries she’s carried her life long.

She remembers the handsome soldiers at the Expo, the lovely one with two girls on his arm who liked the demonstration so much, and thinks, would any of them look twice at her?

By the time she finally falls asleep, she already knows what her decision is, but that’s not really a comfort to her.


	2. Chapter 2

The wedding is in all the society and gossip pages; most of them take the angle of “Business Relationship Turns Into Love,” or something similar, but make sure to remind their readers just how much Howard is worth. Steve wouldn’t read them, except that it’s still her job as protector of the Stark name to know what’s being said about them in the press.

Steve’s dress is Mainbocher; the Stark brand insisted on an American designer, and Howard insisted on the best. It’s by far the most expensive dress she’s ever worn. Her bouquet is a wealth of red roses—heavy in her hands, almost as wide as she is, strangely scentless but flawless and velvety to the touch. In the mirror before the ceremony, Steve thinks that, with her new, pinned up curls and expensive lipstick, she almost looks pretty. Then, at a second glance, she feels overdressed and silly. 

The ceremony is in a courthouse, not a church, by mutual agreement, but the reception afterward is in the ballroom in the mansion, now full of white linen and yet more roses. Steve invites a few friends of hers, mostly friends from Stark Industries, but the majority of the guests are Howard's business associates, and that’s all right with Steve. It’s these people who the marriage is for, anyway. The truth is, Steve doesn't have many people to invite anyway. When she sees large families, she feels like a kid looking into a store from outside the window. All she ever had was her mother; her parents' families were both back in Ireland, so all that's left now of the Rogers name on this side of the Atlantic is Steve. Except, of course, she's not a Rogers any more.

When the wedding is over, they take a weeklong vacation in Hawaii and then get right back to work. Steve still does the same work as always, but she gets paid much, much more for it, and when people new to the company talk to her, they do so deferentially. (People who aren’t new to the company already knew that Miss Rogers, Mr. Stark’s secretary, had more pull than almost anyone else on the payroll, regardless of her title.) Steve finds that if she continues acting the same way she always has toward Howard, it’s now interpreted as the familiarity of a married couple, especially if she takes time occasionally to pat his hand and use an endearment or two. Or three.

 “What are your thoughts on the General Electric energy proposal, Howie darling?” Steve says, tongue in cheek, while they’re in earshot of the marketing department in the California office.

“About ten years behind us, precious angel, as always,” Howard says amiably. “Anyway, we’re sticking to things that shoot and things that fly, ‘til we’re back in peacetime.”

“I’ll draft a rejection letter,” Steve says.

Then, in the late summer of ’43, Howard goes into his office and talks on the phone for an hour with a Colonel Phillips calling from overseas, and afterwards he calls Steve in and shuts the door behind them. But he’s rubbing his hands together, animated. He sits down behind his desk and then almost lights a cigarette before remembering that Steve is there.

“A new contract?” Steve says, flipping her legal pad on her lap to a new page.

“In a manner of speaking,” Howard says. He puts the unlit cigarette back in his case, and in a more sober tone says, “Army lost at least 500 men behind enemy lines a few weeks ago. This is strictly classified, understand: but these men were captured, held prisoner in some kind of factory. Apparently there’s a German science division called Hydra that’s making weapons nobody on the Allied side can figure out, and they’re using Allied POWs as forced labor. Army brass want me in London to look at these weapons and come up with a response.”

 Steve leans forward. “You’re gonna help them rescue those men?”

 Howard sighs. “No, Rogers. Rescue’s not on the table. Phillips says that Hydra’s armaments are so much more advanced than ours, it would be suicide. No, they’re re-tasking the Army’s Strategic Scientific Reserve division to specifically counter Hydra’s threat, and I’ll be arming the special force that’s being assembled, as well as picking apart Hydra’s weapons to see what makes ‘em tick.”

For a moment, Steve doesn’t know what to say. It seems so wrong to just abandon one’s own soldiers, no matter how hopeless the situation is. In the end, what comes out is: “I want to go with you.”

“To the front?” Howard’s brows raise.

“Yes, if that's where you're going,” Steve says. “I want to do my part. You know I tried to sign up to be a WAC, but they wouldn’t take me. If I can help you help those men any faster, it’s worth it.”

Howard rubs his moustache with his thumb. “All right,” he says, with some softness in his expression that Steve thinks other people rarely see. For as much as Stark can occasionally be a bit of a pig, she thinks he kind of enjoys the stubborn side of her that got her in so many fights when she was younger. “I’ll call Phillips and tell him I absolutely need my assistant. Make sure you leak it to the papers that you and I just can’t bear to be parted; they’ll love it.”

“Yes, sir,” Steve says.

It’s only a week later that she’s on a plane with Howard and a suitcase containing the smallest WAC uniform they had; Phillips had finally agreed that she could come as long as she was formally enlisted and subject to WAC regulations, which, of course, had been what she wanted years ago anyway.

When they finally touch down in an airbase outside London, though, Steve is relieved to find that she’s not the only woman around. In fact, the British woman who greets Howard and Steve at the airfield isn’t even a WAC, but an agent with the SSR. Apparently, Howard already knows her.

“Agent Peggy Carter,” the woman says firmly, extending her hand for Steve to shake. Agent Carter is tall, with rich dark curls and war-ready fierce red lipstick as well as a full uniform. Steve gets the sense that, being as beautiful as she is, Agent Carter has learned to go through life speaking and standing firmly. Although Steve can’t say she’s experienced the part about being beautiful, she knows the other side very well.

“Private Stella Stark,” Steve says, as they walk together to the waiting car. She means to tell Agent Carter to call her Steve, but Howard has already begun to pepper Agent Carter with questions about Colonel Phillips’ plans and the status of supply flights into the camp. Steve catches Agent Carter giving her a curious glance, probably noticing that Steve isn’t bothered by Howard’s flirtatious-ebullient manner around another woman (in fact, most women).

While Howard throws their luggage into the trunk, Steve opens her own door and gets into the back seat of the car. Howard sits next to her on the other side, leaving Agent Carter to get into the front passenger seat, next to the driver.

The drive into London is interesting—watching narrow roads turn into city, with all kinds of old buildings with architecture that Steve’s only seen before in books. They finally pull into what looks like a big warehouse, no military signage on the outside at all, but then they leave the car and walk into to a shipping office, Peggy exchanges a cryptic conversation with the secretary, and then the wall of the office opens to reveal a spartan hallway and a staircase going underground. Steve suddenly realizes that she hadn’t understood how secret the operation she was asking to be a part of really was.

Agent Carter leaves Howard to explore the laboratories that have been outfitted for him, as well as the Hydra weapons that have been collected for him to examine, and then suddenly she and Steve are alone.

“I’ll show you to your quarters,” Agent Carter says. “Is this your first time in London?”

“My first time outside the USA,” Steve says honestly. “Agent Carter?”

“You can call me Peggy,” her companion says, with a little emphasis on the _you_.

“You can call me Steve, if you want,” Steve says. “Howard won’t, but he still calls me Rogers sometimes. My maiden name.”

Peggy looks a little amused, and the humor looks well on her face—makes her eyes bright. “What did you want to ask, Steve?”

Steve puts her shoulders back, tries to emulate Peggy’s brisk walk. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m not just here because Howard wanted me. I was the one who asked to come. I intend to take my work here seriously.”

Peggy looks down at her. “I can tell,” she says.

They stop outside a door. “This is your quarters,” Peggy says. “We don’t usually have married couples, so we did our best. Howard is rather a special case.”

Steve opens the door and sees two twin beds on either side of the room. “It looks great,” she says with a little relief, going in to get a feel for the space. She hopes that the lack of open-window ventilation won’t aggravate her asthma. Sleeping in the same room as Howard will be awkward enough.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Peggy says. She pauses. “My quarters are with the WACs’, on the other side of this floor.”

“Thanks,” Steve says.

Peggy smiles at her and goes, heels clicking against the concrete floor.

Work begins in earnest the next day: currently, it mostly involves Howard prodding, disassembling, and puzzling over the Hydra weapons they’ve been left, and Steve taking notes while standing well back. Periodically, Peggy comes in and gives them updates or new data, including a final roster of the men chosen to be a part of the SSR’s special commando force against Hydra. “The idea is to make fast, stealthy, strategic strikes on key Hydra locations, rather than using brute force,” Peggy explains. “Colonel Phillips believes we have the best sniper in the Allied forces.”

Steve reads through the roster; Peggy’s made notes for Howard on what specialized equipment she believes each man will need. For all the talk of Allied forces, though, the names on the list all sound British and American. The commanding officer is a man named Montgomery Falsworth. A demolitions expert named Timothy Dugan. Gabriel Jones, linguistics. Gilmore Hodge. Robert Ralston. James Barnes, the sniper Peggy mentioned.

"What's got you smiling, Rogers?" Howard asks, once Peggy's gone and he's poring over the results of the spectroscopic analysis of the Hydra gun that appears to shoot blue light. According to Howard, the blue light that is clearly visible to the eye does not show up on any kind of instrument. He's both irritated and fascinated by it.

"Nothing," Steve says. But as she goes back to her work, she can't help but look around her and think that she's finally where she wanted to be. Not on the front lines, but that wouldn't have happened unless she was a man, and a lot healthier. But she's making a difference—at least she hopes she is. 

Even if it means she has to share a bedroom with Howard, who mutters in his sleep, to do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember the part in the first Cap movie where Phillips says he's made a list of the best men for Steve's team, and Steve says, "So have I"? I definitely think that without Steve, the Commandos wouldn't have been as diverse. However, I love Gabe and couldn't bear to leave him out, particularly as he is an original Commando.
> 
> Next week: more SSR, and then the Manhattan Project.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and let me know what you think!


End file.
